It was a great thrill for me to come across this juvenile (Red-shouldered?) hawk back in mid June 2017 at Negro Bar State Park. I was using my shiny new Canon Powershot SX530 HS with 16 pixels, 50x optical zoom, and no viewfinder, only an LCD screen. Back then, I believed looking through an LCD was the best option for […]
It’s actually been a couple of months since I checked out the completed renovations at the beach/picnic area of Negro Bar State Park — but ever since I shot these images I’ve been meaning to go back through my archives and find some of my earlier photos of the area as it’s looked at various times over the past seven […]
I rather like the photo feature on my phone that reminds me of pictures I took in previous years on the same date. Sometimes they are images I scarcely remember, and it takes me a few minutes to remember where I was and why I took them. Clearly, when you shoot a lot of photos only the really special ones […]
Back in June 2015, I did a lot of early morning hiking around Negro Bar with a small, cheap Cobra Digital camera that ran on two AAA batteries. At the time, 8 megapixels seemed like a lot, and even though the colors came out looking a little odd, and the picture quality was somewhat grainy, it was lightweight and easy […]
Along both trails I found the American River, along with yellow flowers, insects, and piles of rocks. The wet, happy dog was a bonus! Negro Bar State Park, Sacramento County Magnolia Ranch, El Dorado County
One of my favorite local bridges, located just below Greenback Lane near the “new” Lake Natoma Crossing.
There’s far too much yellow star thistle growing along the American River bike trail. While the flowers may look pretty, these plants have some fearsome spikes — it’s definitely no fun getting these stuck into your socks! Sadly, it’s nearly impossible to completely eradicate such invasive species. And since the bumblebees apparently seem to love them, it’s probably a losing […]
During my hikes around Lake Natoma, I frequently hear the sounds of scurrying in the weeds or catch a quick glimpse out of the corner of my eye as some critter scuttles away from the top of a nearby rock or log. This morning, though, I came around a corner of the trail and locked eyes with this gorgeous Western […]
One of my favorite trails through the state park runs parallel to (and just a stone’s throw from) very busy Greenback Lane; and yet if I can get out early enough it can be a great place to snack on juicy blackberries, listen to all sorts of bird songs, encounter some Valley Quail, or maybe even spot a blacktail buck. […]